them with a strong hand !"*-swept hundreds of thousands of these excellent people and their defenders, from the plains and vallies of Europe, and filled the very caves of the mountains with their lifeless bodies. "Yet notwithstanding all the cruelties used against them, their enemies could never prevail to a total extirpation of them, but they still lay hid like sparkles under the ashes, desiring and longing to see that, which now through God's grace, their posterity do enjoy, viz.: The liberty to call upon God in purity of conscience, without being enforced to any superstition and idolatry; and so instructing their children in the service of God, the Lord was pleased to preserve a church amongst them, in the midst of the Romish corruptions, as a diamond in a dunghill, as wheat amongst chaff, as gold in the fire; till it pleased God to disperse the gospel in a more general and public way, by the ministry of Luther, and his associates and fellow-laborers in the Lord: At which time, these Albigenses received with greediness the doctrine of the gospel, and so became more eminent in their profession of piety than they were formerly."+ The beautiful and well known sonnet of Milton, written between 1655-1658, and worthy alike of the poet and the Christian, shall close my account of the Waldenses and Albigenses. "On the late Massacre in Piedmont." "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, *The words of pope Innocent III. in his exhortation to the crusaders against the Albigenses. + Clarke's Martyrology, Chap. 25. Forget not; in thy book record their groans To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow CHAPTER VI. HISTORICAL VIew of great bRITAIN, b. c. 55, to a. d. 1350. BRITAIN, is a name dear to every Congregationalist. It was upon the soil of Britain that the principles which he loves were first fully restored to the Church of Christ, after an oblivion of a thousand years. It was in this island, regarded by the ancients as "the ends of the carth," that those great and good men arose, who shone as lights in the world; and became the guides of inquiring thousands, to the simple and apostolic doctrines respecting the faith, and order, and worship of the Christian Church. As Great Britain is to be the field of our investigation for a considerable time, and as our whole denominational his * "A mother was hurled down a mighty rock, with a little infant in her arms; and three days after was found dead, with the little child alive, but fast clasped between the arms of the dead mother, which were cold and stiff, insomuch that those who found them had much ado to get the young child out."-Moreland's Hist, of the Chhs, of Piedmont, quoted by Jones, Vol. II. p. 354, tory is intimately associated with the church history of Britain, it will not be deemed an inappropriate introduction to this field, to present a brief outline of her religious history, from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the days of John Wickliffe. The most ancient names of this island were Briton, Albion, or Albin. Its very early history contains so much that is fabulous, that it is difficult to distinguish between truth and falshood. Hume rejects "all traditions, or rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain ;" and begins his history with the invasion of Julius Caesar. Sharon Turner, on the contrary, "insists, that sufficient attention has not been paid to them by his predecessors." Milton seems to have regarded these ancient fables and traditions as containing" footsteps and reliques" worth noticing. It seems most probable, that the island was known to the Phoenicians, those ancient navigators, some centuries before the Roman invasion. In the year 55 or 56 before Christ, Julius Caesar, having overrun Gaul with his victorious legions, turned his eyes towards the neighboring island of Briton. Influenced, probably, more by love of conquest than anything else, he effected a landing on the island, and made some attempts to wards conquering the ferocious inhabitants. But, so determined was their resistance, that the Roman conqueror seems at first to have done little else than to establish a temporary and precarious footing upon their shores; and finally, but half conquered the barbarous people. The complete conquest of Briton was not accomplished until nearly a century and a half after the attempt of Caesar, by the celebrated Cneius Julius Agricola, A. D. 84. And this, according to Gibbon: "After a war of about forty years." The inhabitants of this island, when visited by the Ro mans, appear to have consisted of two races; the Belgic, inhabiting the south-eastern part, and the Celtic, who had been driven into the interior. The former of these, had made so much progress toward civilization as to have become, to some extent, an agricultural people. The latter were more fierce, barbarous, and ferocious; dwelling in temporary huts in the woods, clad in skins, if covered at all, and depending chiefly upon their flocks and the wild. game of the forests for their living. They were broken up into numerous independent tribes, without any common bond of union among themselves, except what their common faith furnished. Druidism of the Britons. Their religion was of the most despotic character. Their priests, who were called Druids, not only superintended the offering of sacrifices—which, on great occasions were sometimes human-but they engrossed the entire business of instructing the youth; they were the physicians of the island; the arbiters in all disputes between states, as well as individuals; no public business could be transacted without their authority; they claimed judicial power, in criminal, as well as civil cases; were exempt from the burdens of war and taxation-in a word, were the sovereigns of the Britons. To enforce their decrees, the druids had the power to excommunicate any offender from public worship, to debar him from any intercourse with his fellowcitizens in any of the affairs of life, to refuse him protection from violence of any kind, and thus to render life an insupportable burden; or, they could absolve one from all guilt, and thus free him from all punishment. At the head of these mighty priests was an Arch-Druid, who was their sovereign, and ruled them as absolutely as they ruled the nation. Their worship was in the open air; and usually, if not uniformly, under the shade of the oak; which they are said to have worshipped as the symbol of the Supreme Being himself, or the place of his special residence. From these circumstances, the priests and their worship are supposed, by some antiquaries, to have derived their name— Druids-Druidism, from dous (druse) an oak. They are supposed to have believed in the immortality of the soul, and its transmigration after death. They used no books in their instructions. All their religious and scientific knowledge; all that they taught of history, or of the deeds. of their ancestors, was oral, and much of it in verse: these their pupils were required to commit to memory, but were forbidden to write down. The better to accomplish their purposes, the Druids carried their pupils into distant and desolate regions, and there instructed them, from day to day, in lonely caves. Their course of instruction seems not to have been finished until 24,000 verses, containing divers kinds of knowledge, were committed to memory. Never were a people so completely controlled and enslaved by their religious rites, and religious teachers, as were the ancient Britons. After the conquest of the island, the Romans, finding it impossible to govern the people while their religious superstitions were tolerated, were compelled-contrary to their usual policy-to abolish Druidism by penal statutes. Briton a Roman Province, A. D. 84-448. It was among this people, that Roman colonies were settled, Roman laws, and manners, and customs, and learning, |